VETERANS remembering the Korean War attended a service commemorating the truce half-a-century after the armistice was signed.

VETERANS remembering the Korean War attended a service commemorating the truce half-a-century after the armistice was signed.

Former teacher, retired minister and Korean veteran the Rev Simon Hamill-Stewart, who lives in Middlewich, led the service in St John the Evangelist Church, Byley, marking 50 years since the signing of the truce of Panmunjom.

During his ceremony the former Winsford Vicar delivered a message calling for greater efforts to ensure lasting peace.

Mr Hamill-Stewart said: 'The service was divided into two parts - remembrance and peace.

'We remembered those who died in the war and talked about what had been achieved by the war, because it was in the Dark Ages almost.

'Then we prayed for peace because there has been a truce but never peace - there has been trouble since.'

Mr Hamill-Stewart, who served in the Royal Artillery, travelled to South Korea by ship in December 1952, arriving in time for Christmas dinner a few days short of his 20th birthday.

'There were no aeroplanes in those days,' he explained. 'We went on a ship and it took three weeks to get to Hong Kong.

'We stopped at Hong Kong, Singapore and Ceylon, what is now Sri Lanka. We got off at the various stops and we were greeted by families, and on the way back we travelled with the released prisoners of war.

'It wasn't comfortable nor was the food good, but I enjoyed the travelling and the comradery, and it was always interesting.

'But you do only remember the good parts of the past, and I know it was very cold, the climate was similar to Siberia.'

He is cautious in using the word 'enjoyment' for fear it would seem inappropriate to those who saw action.

He said: 'If I enjoyed my time in Korea it was because of the comradeship and travel and chance to meet people of different nationalities.

'I was also fortunate in that I was there at the end of the war, when the situation was at a stalemate, and I was also about three miles behind the front line.'

After the war, he went to Cambridge, where he studied classics. He was ordained in 1980 and moved to become the reverend of St John's Church in Over, Winsford.